The Facebook Roundup: Volume 13

As per usual…

Those that land in our “good” selection are ones which really bring forth best practices, creativity, and effectiveness. The “bad” are ones that had a possibility at potential but weren’t exactly making the cut. For the “worst”, and we mean no hard feelings to those at the bottom of the list, is that special feeling you get when your stomach doesn’t settle (that sudden lump in the back of your throat).

So let’s begin with Volume 13.

This edition will be a little different as the sponsored stories and ads have been pulled from mobile.

The Good

The mobile ad that stood out the most this week was created by ToutApp.

Why it’s so good:

• The page icon is a little busy but the brand identity is visible
• The promise of “one click” for using templates to do better email is very enticing for anyone that is buried in their inbox (which is just about all of us)
• The creative is able to show off one of the templates and the copy within the creative is legible and punchy (plus the appropriate call to action)
• The thought of “successful sales teams have a Tout template” makes you ponder which teams and why your team isn’t one of them
• “It only takes two minutes” is solid for quick action and experience
• Sign Up is perfect for users and exactly what the ad is trying to do

I believe this ad nails all the points perfectly. The ad is directed at individuals that are either having trouble keeping up with emails or feel overwhelmed by them because they are writing them so frequently. The copy explains it all but you can understand the value right in the creative alone.

The Bad

Coming in the middle (and you’ll definitely see why) is Heartland Crime Stoppers Florida.

Why it’s bad:

• The copy is punchy and easy to understand in terms of value but it’s rather vague on how one goes about actually using the service
• The images are stock and boring plus having it sit on a red background (and using tiny white text which says who knows? Makes the image worthless for the most part) – it could have benefited with simpler, less blocky design
• They didn’t take advantage of the additional copy and just repeated their brand
• They are going for likes but this would have been something better suited to bring people to a landing page with additional information because it is an interesting concept but I would imagine a lot of it is lost once you land on the FB page

The ad is going in the right direction with the top copy and it has a unique business model but the creative is really lackluster and hard to visually digest. It’s as if 90% of the effort went into the top copy and then passed over to someone else to throw together the rest.

The What?

And at the bottom of our list is something by Afimilk?

It’s just… the worst:

• What is the logo for the FB page? A spy glass with some white splotches? Is it supposed to be a glass of milk falling over and splashing out? I sure don’t know
• That’s nice that we can like the page and get news and updates but what kind of content are you sharing? By now we figure it’s something to do with dairy but what dairy-related content is going to entice us to follow a page? Needs examples or an actual piece of content
• “Welcome to afimilk where precision meets innovation” sounds like they took the brand name and plunked it into a generic business buzzword generator. What are they precise at? What are the innovations we should know about? Why is someone reading a paper next to a laptop?
• Again with not capitalizing on the additional copy and just going for the like

This is one of those sponsored pieces that has you scratching your head because, honestly, what is even going on with this? Apparently there are a few thousand likes so the brand is at least known but if you were to see this pop up in your feed could you even tell what it’s about? Something about dairy farms who set the targeting on this thing?

Conclusion

What did we learn this week?

1. Copy is great but if you can convey your message with a great piece of creative you will automatically convey the value to the user.
2. Try to put additional effort into the creative especially if your gut reaction at looking at it makes you think “this is damn ugly”.
3. Tell people what you do (obviously) rather than asking for likes because… you know… people don’t just blindly follow a page about dairy farms because “precision meets innovation”.

Seen any good, bad, or down-right ugly ads this week? Have thoughts about these ones? Share your experiences with FB ads and sponsored posts with a comment below.